I posted about this a few days ago, but I thought it deserved a reminder, so here we go. This week's Tuesday update for QUAKE Live will be a big one and while we don't have details on what is being done, we do know the update will take 4 to 6 hours. That's considerable downtime and something that should be noted by clans with scheduled matches. There's no word on when the update will start, but I'd guess it would be between 3 PM and 5 PM EST.

Crap! I'm a couple days behind on this one and I have no idea how that happened, but here's my attempt at catching up. The crew behind QUAKE Live is kicking up the funk with new "DevPick" servers that will offer some tweaked gameplay mechanics like lower gravity, increased speed and even some weapon fun. Here's the official word before you all get funky!

We’ve launched new experimental weekend servers, newly coined ‘DevPick’ servers (the question marks confused a few people last week ;)). This week’s DevPick servers are now running with low gravity, increased speed, and altered weapon settings.

These weapon settings include a weaker railgun and grenade, both with more knockback; a weaker lightninggun that pulls players toward you, and a plasmagun with more kick. These ‘DevPick Low Grav’ servers are now up and running in Clan Arena and Capture the Flag gametypes.

According to the most recent QUAKE Live update, some more new servers were created following the new ones from last week’s Tuesday Update. The newest additions are 'Quick Match' servers for unranked Free for All action, and “quick” is right! With a three frag limit, these games are going to go about as fast as chaingun ammo, so be ready to rock when the match begins. As usual, here’s the official blurb:

Due to the feedback from this Tuesday's update, we are now hosting additional game servers. We have placed some 'Quick Match' servers online for unranked Free for All practice.

These servers have a low 3 fraglimit, typically hit within the first minute of play. This allows for a lot of quick match scenarios to play out without the typical issue of FFA where it drags on and eventually the lower placing players have no hope of reaching the fraglimit. So hop on in and grab a dozen matches while on your lunch break -- but stay on your toes and don't blink, or someone else will hit the fraglimit before you can say "Two Frags in Two Seconds".

QUAKE Live got a booster shot in yesterday’s “Tuesday update” and players will have noticed the downtime needed to make some back-end adjustments. The result of yesterdays update is some new servers that should make players grin with new choices. Check out the update below for details!

We took QUAKE LIVE offline for just a short period today to update our statsdaemon, a necessary adjustment to our back-end systems so that we could continue our work on improving scalability.

In addition to these back-end changes, we are now also running additional servers, including 'Large Clan Arena' servers running 8v8 Team Sizes, and for our Team Deathmatch fans we are now running 'InstaTDM', 'Team DM 2v2' and 'pro TDM 2v2' servers.

It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s time to check out what the QUAKE Live team has done for their fairly regular “Tuesday Update”. This week brings a few minor fixes and tweaks, so while nothing earth shaking has been done, a few minor issues have gotten attention. Here’s the latest update to QUAKE Live:

The cg_autoAction code issues have been resolved. Auto demo recording is once again fully functional, including the new expanded features that were made available last week for recording matches that were already in progress when you joined.

We released a minor bug fix update in the backend which should make launching servers more reliable in certain situations for servers hosted far away from our data center in California, USA. This was most obviously affecting the South Africa location.

The QUAKE LIVE Friends Search has been optimized to greatly decrease the amount of time it takes to yield search results.

It’s Wednesday, and that means we can tell you about the latest QUAKE Live Tuesday update! This week’s update covers more than just some game tweaks, so make sure to check out the latest QUAKE Live Update for all the details. Here’s the list of game and site changes for your convenience:

Game Updates

Spectators in duel now persist across map switches. So an idling spectator should not get picked as a viable player if they have previously selected "Spectate" from the join menu. Spectators will now be shown with (s) appended to their name in duel.

cg_autoAction will now work for matches that are already in progress. For example, if you set cg_autoAction to 1 or 3 prior to joining a server where a match has already started, a demo should begin recording upon connecting.

Fixed the "3 Second Respawn Delay" message from appearing at the end of CTF matches in situations when the match is not going into overtime.

Gametype-dependent menus, such as Join screens, should now display properly.

Web Updates

Added four new awards to recognize the participants of the ESL Intel Extreme Masters World Championship:

I can't believe I'm behind on this one, but it's been a stupid week, so I blame the gremlins of "real life". On February 23rd, QUAKE Live has been open to the public for one year, and to celebrate the fact the dev team has not only posted a fine tribute to all that's gone down, but is offering a new update that includes more than just tweaks, it's got a new CTF map called "Fallout Bunker". Players of Quake 3: Team Arena will be familiar with this one and it's now part of QUAKE Live for some fresh CTF fragging action. There's more to the latest update, and you'll get some graphical juice with the new bloom effect that's been added as long as your video drivers support the feature. Various other tweaks and changes have been introduced as well, and you can check out the complete list in the official Changelog. Get all the details on the first year of open QUAKE Live action in the Year One Review and you'll find some shots of the new map as well. Happy birthday QUAKE Live!

This weeks Tuesday update for QUAKE Live isn't a big one for most people and is aimed at people in the Private Server test stage. Without further ado, here's the official word right from the source:

Today at 1:30 pm CST we made updates to our backend and our private server spawning process. We have now concluded these updates.

For organizations and players participating in our private server tests, you will now be prompted with a link to your spawned match with the ability to join, without the need to locate your newly spawned match on the private match browser.

It's Friday, and as I mentioned earlier in the week, I want to give the Planet Quake Friday Night Frag Fest another shot. We'll be doing QUAKE Live again so that anyone can play ('cause it's free!) and I'm hoping we can get some good team games going on in either Team Dm or CTF. Here's the details on how you can join in, and we hope to see you there!

We'll be in IRC (irc.enterthegame.com #planetquake) at 8 PM Eastern (That's 7 PM Central and 5 PM on the West coast) and I'll select a central server we can hit. I'm aiming for some TDm or CTF to start us off, but we can play whatever the group wants. So meet us in IRC or just find me (Just search and add player name: PappyR) in QUAKE Live's server list and jump on in!

This week's QUAKE Live update doesn't change the game beyond removing the holiday content they had in place since December 22nd. The Christmas themed map, "Silent Night", as well as the holiday player skins have been removed from the servers and things are back to normal. The large CTF map action was a hit with players though, and the map may return in a non-holiday form as a permanent play option. Here's the official update in it's entirety:

The holidays have come and gone and with its passing goes its spirit. The Holiday CTF servers are now offline and Santa and Vixen have flown back to the North Pole jingling all the way. Keeping warm by the fireplace, they are laying in wait until a future holiday season is upon us. We hope you all enjoyed Silent Night and earned your award while you could.

We have been pleased to hear that many of you enjoyed playing on our Holiday Servers. We understand that it offers a unique play experience that many players appreciated and are currently considering making changes to the map so that it may make a return to Quake Live in the future as a more permanent fixture to the CTF lineup.

Starting tomorrow (December 22nd), QUAKE Live players will get their stockings stuffed with some seasonal goodies from the QUAKE Live team. Check out the new Holiday Cheer preview where they show off a new map that will hit the scene for some festive fragfests! The map is called Silent Night, and it's a remake of the original Team Arena map we all know as "Distant Screams". Along with the new map that will hold 32 players comes some new holiday themed players skins, which include Santa and Vixen! Get your sleigh aimed at the Holiday Cheer Preview for pics, details and even a saucy new wallpaper! Fa la la la la, la la la... Frag!

New from Han-Sai Productions comes the Unagi 2009 QUAKE Live frag flick! So far the movie is available in streaming format only over at own3D, but the quality is good and the action is hot! Featuring the frags from top players along with some frag pounding tunes, it's one not to miss. You can get more details on the players and music at ESReality, so get to clicking pronto! Here's the official blurb on the film:

The movie consists of first person duel frags with conservative editing, spiced up with a few frags from other modes, award logos and funny clips.

This week's "Tuesday Update" for QUAKE Live is huge, and effects the Web interface as well as introducing many gameplay changes. Since the update is too big to post here (Check the DevBlog for all the details!), I'll just tell you about the big news. First up is the new hit boxes, which are now cylindrical instead of the boxes that used to be larger than the player models. Hit detection will be much more precise due to the change, and that may take some getting used to. Another "biggie" is the increased server framerate, which will make the game smoother as well as make the Lightning Gun more consistent. Maps have been tweaked, vertexlighting has been improved and there's many more changes that you'll notice including a new Welcome page and streamlined registration process, so hop on over to the QUAKE Live to see and experience them all. An awesome update for a killer game!

After the nice chunks of news we had yesterday, I knew today would be a little slow, so I saved this post for today. Our old pal, Badb0y is working on a full QUAKE Live config guide, and sent along a couple helpful resources QUAKE Live players can use in the meantime. First up is the Advanced Client Options post by Mav_ that runs through a ton of game options and commands with explanations of what they do and how to use them. For those that don’t like to read as much there’s the handy dandy Lashknife’s Quake Live Config Generator for creating your own config online, and it’s so easy I think my brother could even use it (PoW!). So there you go, no go forth and tweak your config to get things just how you like them in QUAKE Live.

For those that would like to relive the time of the Quake 3 Arena Road Tour from 1999, check out badb0y’s article that will take you through those hot and heady days back when the Q3A bus was touring the U.S. bringing fresh frags to the masses. The article is in German, but there’s plenty of resource links to English articles for us to enjoy.

I saw over on ESReality this morning that the Dreamhack Winter event that goes from today until Sunday will be having live video coverage of the group and bracket stage on QuakeLive.tv with the likes of "djWHEAT and the GreasedScotsman giving you the play by play. So slide on over to QuakeLive.tv to watch it all go down live, and keep an eye on ESReality for updates. Game on!

It's a strange update this week for QUAKE Live since none of the technical details are given. The systems and back-end have been updated to help support the upcoming Dreamhack Winter 2009 event in Sweden, but there are no changes to gameplay on this update. Here's the whole, official blurb:

Tonight's update has been made in anticipation and support of Dreamhack Winter 2009, taking place this November 26th-29th in Elmia, Sweden. These changes are primarily system and back-end related and do not change gameplay. Dreamhack will be hosting a QUAKE LIVE 64 player Duel tournament. We look forward to following the matches through the US Thanksgiving holiday week and would like to wish the best of luck to the tournament participants

The Fragster.de has tons of demos from a lot of different games, that’s what they do, but they’re very excited about the whack of additions to the QUAKE Live section that offers up a wide variety of demos in all the available game modes. Recent additions include demos from the ESL Major Series, IEM Europe Qualification Cups, Zotac-Cup and more, so stop by and scoop some demos from pros and highly skilled community players and you may even learn a trick or two. (Thanks ESReality!)

Sure QuakeLive.TV has a metric ton of QUAKE Live matches, tourneys and clan battles, but I just saw that they've got a tutorial series going called the First Frag Tutorials. These are very helpful as some of the skilled staff stage duel matches that aren't shoutcasted as much as explained and openly discussed as far as tactics, goals and strategies. I found them helpful and I've been around for a while, so you might find some gold in them as well unless you're an absolute pro yourself. Duel newbies or those wanting to up their duel skills should definitely check it out!